A blog about painting figures and making terrain for 10mm Ancients Wargaming.
With some 28mm figures thrown in for good measure.
If you like anything you see please leave a comment.

Sunday, 5 September 2010

Silflor Grass Tufts

I've been looking for a way to liven up the arid/desert bases for my Carthage force for a while now, and I've toyed with the idea of using dead static grass that is a pale yellow colour, to make the bases look a little less like a sand desert.

However in the end I've decided to give Silflor grass tufts a go. These are strips of random clumps of static grass, designed to look like natural tufts of grass. I decided to try a couple of small packs which retail for about £3.70 a box. I wasn't sure exactly how much you get for that, so I've photographed the contents with a couple of 10mm figures.

These are 2mm or "short" tufts and are a good fit for 10mm scale. The strips are double sided, so you do get a fair number of tufts. As you can see on the cutting mat, it comes to about 15cm x 10cm.

The tufts themselves are irregularly shaped and the grass seems to be bonded to a flexible glue that stays lightly tacky. They can be pulled apart to make smaller tufts as well without noticeably damaging the appearance of the grass. I've used tacky glue to attach mine to the bases.

As you can see the grass is maybe too much of a good match for my arid base scheme! It does make the bases look more interesting in real life though and certainly achieves the look I was going for of a parched land rather than total desert.

Would I recommend these? Probably only for very specific jobs/projects. They give a better finish and more control over placement than static grass and glue, but they are more pricey. I can definitely see the benefits of the larger tufts for dioramas and larger show-piece models, but for my 10mm projects they are not going to replace static grass for basing grass-land figures.